Assignment - Budapest (22 page)

“Hello! Were you worried about me?”

“A little. Where did you get that?”

‘‘The bus? Oh, I stood out here thinking,” Matyas said, with a great show of being casual, although he looked very pleased with himself. “We’re quite a crowd by now, and the car is hot, as you would say. So I thought of a friend of mine who drives this bus for the city administration, and I thought of how fine a vehicle it would be for us, so I drove the old car of Janos’s down to the terminal garages and saw my friend. It was easy to convince him to yield the keys and keep his mouth shut. He thinks I’ve graduated from my AVO uniform to plainclothes.”

“Hold it right there,” Durell said.

Turning, he ran back to the alley where the others were huddled in a dark, shivering group. Quickly he organized them and one by one they slipped through the shadows and boarded the waiting bus.

“What about our friend Bela?” Matyas asked.

“He’s dead. He tried to break things up, and Maria killed him.”

Matyas looked at the dark, thin woman with admiration. “Now that is what I call a real woman. One who is not afraid, who can act with speed and decision. Come sit by me, Maria. We can talk together on the way.”

McFee signaled to Durell from the back of the bus, and as it lurched forward on the beginning of what was to be a memorable journey, Durell took the Russian rifle from Janos and worked back to join the little man.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Sam," McFee said tiredly.

“We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“I know that. In a way, I ought to bat your ears down for coming in after me. It was a crazy thing to do. On the other hand, I’m grateful. I don’t know how long I could have held out against them. I don’t think they were really sure of my identity, or they would have really put the screws on me, and I lost my pills, so I couldn’t put myself out of their reach. I guess I’m a bit too old for this sort of thing, after all.”

“You gave me a free hand,” Durell said. “I thought it best to come this way.”

“Do you think we can make it?”

Durell looked at Matyas up in the driver’s seat; the big man was talking happily to Maria, who sat listening quietly and smiling. “I begin to think so,” he said softly. “With these people, anything is possible. They want freedom in a way we’ve almost forgotten, General. Maybe they’ll be good for us. They’ll remind us of some things we take for granted, which we can lose too easily if we don’t stay sharp about it.” McFee sighed. He looked very tired. “But there will always be people like Roger Wyman.”

“He’s our only loose end. We’ll tie him up,” Durell said. “You’d better try to rest now. We may have a long way to walk, later on.”

The bus was already in the outskirts of Buda, rolling westward on the highway. The night was dark and windy and cold, with no stars, and every now and then a spit of rain sprayed the wide windows of the vehicle. Durell started forward to talk to Matyas about the route he was taking, and Ilona plucked at his sleeve and he sank down into the seat beside her. She smiled at him, a wistfulness on her small, pretty face, and then she turned her head so she wasn’t looking directly at him. Her hands were restless in her lap.

“Everything has been moving so fast, Sam. You and I have not had a moment alone since those hours in Hegedus’ farm. Yet I have been thinking of you constantly. You’re on your way home, at last.”

“So are you,” Durell said. “You’re coming with us, all the way.”

“I don’t know. I can’t make up my mind about it.”

“You can’t stay here in Hungary.”

“Probably not. It is just a feeling I have. As if I were deserting people who need help so desperately.”

“You’ve done your share,” Durell said. “Don’t think about it.”

“Who is to measure the cup and say it is full now, there is enough given to it, you may rest and drink?”

“You’re tired,” Durell said. “Tomorrow it will look different to you.”

“Tomorrow you will be flying back to Deirdre,” she said. “I haven’t thought about her.”

“Yes, you have. You have never forgotten her and you never will. What happened between us was nothing. Only a moment of hysteria on my part, a moment of loneliness for you. There is no need to reproach yourself about it. I have no regrets. I shall always be grateful to you.”

Durell leaned forward and kissed her lightly. Her lips were cool and unresponsive. She touched his cheek with light, slim fingers.

“I want to sleep now,” she said.

The first barricade showed up in the village of Rozsadomb, in the outskirts of Budapest. A truckload of soldiers stood at the intersection of the secondary road Matyas had taken. In the bus, everything was dark and quiet, and Durell had ordered everyone to sit quietly in their seats as if they were ordinary passengers. A Russian sub-lieutenant with a machine gun halted the bus and climbed aboard, his slanted Mongolian eyes glittering and suspicious. The man spoke only a few words of halting Hungarian, and it was obvious, from his lack of ease, the manner in which his eyes touched the appointments of the bus interior, and his general air of nervousness, that he was not long from the wild steppes of Central Asia. In some respects he was all the more to be feared, Durell thought quietly, leaning his head back against the seat as if weary of delays and wishing only sleep. Beside him, under the fold of his coat, was the automatic rifle, his finger on the trigger. The sub-lieutenant swaggered through the bus, barked something at Matyas, who shrugged expressively, and then climbed down again and waved them through.

When the trucks were out of sight, Durell got up and sat behind Matyas. “What did he say to you?”

“He wanted to know where we were going.” Matyas laughed softly. “I told him this was an express bus to Gyor. And that is not far from the truth, is it?”

“You won’t be able to use that when we come to an AVO check point.”

“I know where they usually put up their blockades. We can take some side roads to get around them into the countryside. But there will be more Russians up ahead, in tanks. I know them well, the dirty savages.”

In twenty minutes they reached a second roadblock. Again it was manned by Russians, this time in armored cars, with the dark masses of T-54’s bulking in the shadows under a grove of trees flanking the road. The same routine was followed. Matyas was a consummate actor. He expressed indignation, impatience at his loss of time on the schedule he was supposed to follow, and just the right amount of respectful cooperation toward the Soviet military. They were passed through.

“Now we will turn north,” Matyas said, grinning. “There are a number of secondary roads we can take.”

“If we run into a check point on them, won’t it arouse suspicion because the bus belongs on the main highway?” Durell asked.

“I can always say I was detoured at the last barricade. And I shall complain bitterly about it.”

“If we have a straight run, how long will it take to reach the border?”

Matyas shrugged. “Two, closer to three, hours. With luck.” He sighed. “But we do not have a straight run. We will go north of Gyor on this road I know, and then cut west again. It will be all right.”

“Make it three hours, then,” Durell said.

“If we are lucky, yes.”

Durell went back in the rocking bus and sank wearily into the leather seat next to Ilona. She was smoking a cigarette, staring out through the wide windows at the dark, flickering countryside. They were well out of the city now, following a graveled road that twisted and turned like a snake through small hills and dense patches of woodland. Here and there a dim light flickered from some peasant’s farmhouse. The bus jounced wildly over ruts in the road, the springs squealing in protest as Matyas pushed down on the gas with abandon. Durell leaned across the girl to take her cigarette, and saw the silver streaks of tears on her face. “What is it?” he whispered. “Why are you crying, Ilona.” 

“I don’t know.”

“There must be a reason.”

“I’m a fool. I feel confused.”

“What about?”

“You. I think I’m in love with you, darling.”

He said nothing and she turned, her dark hair glinting in the faint starshine that came through the bus windows. She smiled weakly and touched his hands. “I’m afraid I made a bad bargain with you, after all,” she said quietly. “You are disappointed in me now, aren’t you?”

“No, but—”

“You need not say anything about it. It’s all right. I know you don’t love me. And that is not the whole cause for the way I feel. I just don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, going back with all of you.”

“You can’t stay in Hungary,” he said flatly.

“But I want to. I feel—like a coward, running away.” “You’re not a coward. Don’t think about it.”

She looked at him with solemn eyes. “Tell me, truly. Aren’t you afraid, sometimes, in the work you do, that you may be making a wrong decision, taking a step in the wrong direction?”

“I try not to think about it.”

“Very well. I’ll try not to think, too.”

It was cold in the bus. The heating equipment did not operate satisfactorily, and the silent passengers sat huddled in their seats, uncomfortable and tense. Durell spoke to Dr. Tagy, then Maria, then went back to McFee. McFee had the Russian sub-machine gun in his lap.

“We’ve been too lucky,” McFee said. “We’ll have trouble soon.”

“The longer it’s postponed, the better, and the closer we get to the border.”

“Do you honestly think we’re going to make it, Cajun?” Durell thought of the busload of people depending on him. The responsibility weighed on him with tangible pressure, like a load on his back. “We’ll make a good try at it.” “We can’t afford to be captured again, Sam.”

“I know that.”

“Some of these people will talk about us, if they’re taken, too.”

“I know.”

“We can’t let that happen, Sam.”

Durell looked at the little man’s face in the shadows of the bus seat. McFee’s meaning was clear enough. They either won through to freedom for all of them, or they had to die. Everyone in the bus. There was no other choice possible.

“Do you understand, Sam?”

Durell looked at the automatic in McFee’s hands. McFee had taken up a position in the very last seat in the bus, where his gun covered the nodding heads of their passengers. He looked especially at Ilona.

“Let’s not borrow trouble, Dick.”

“I just wanted you to know what I’ll have to do, Sam. You can take care of Ilona, if you prefer.”

“I couldn’t kill her,” Durell said. “That’s nonsense.” “You’ll have to, if we’re caught. Otherwise, I’ll do it.” McFee’s words were quiet, and terrible because of the calm riding behind his narrow face. “She’s in love with you, Sam.” 

“I know. She told me.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“I don’t feel anything about it. You’re still borrowing trouble. We’re halfway to the border already.”

“Halfway isn’t good enough,” McFee said. “Go on back and hold her hand.”

An hour went by. Most of the people in the bus sat unmoved, waiting for disaster. The boy, Janos, wanted to relieve Matyas at the wheel, but the big man pushed him aside. The road they followed with the ponderous vehicle was little more than a country lane, muddy, filled with ice and slippery when they went through the deep shadows of wooded territory. Once, Durell saw flares lifting in the horizon of the night sky, far to the south. Budapest was far behind, and if they had been on the main highway to the west, they would be close to the border by now. But the roadblocks on the main highway would have been death traps, each one of them, and it was better not to push their luck too far. He only hoped that Matyas was as good as his word and knew his way along these back roads. If they got lost and were forced to waste precious hours wandering around, the night would be gone, and in daylight escape would be impossible.

Matyas called him forward finally, and Durell went down the aisle of the bus to sit directly behind the driver’s seat. Matyas spoke soberly. “This is as far as I can go, staying off the main roads. In about three more miles, we come out on a main highway going west. There is no other route we can take, you understand? There will be a roadbock in a short distance, once we reach the highway, and it will be manned by Hungarian AVO people. It will be the point of greatest danger for us.”

“How far are we from the frontier now?”

“When we reach the block, it will be about ten miles.” “How much speed can you get out of the bus?”

“Fifty—maybe sixty miles an hour.”

“We may have to break through and push for it,” Durell said. “Be ready, if it comes to that.”

“Yes. There will be much shooting, if we do that, though. And the women will be in danger.”

Durell looked back and saw McFee on the rear seat, with his gun. “We’ll all be in danger. The women take equal chances with the men in this.”

“I don’t like to do that,” Matyas said. “Maria and I—”

“You take your chances together.”

“All right. Here we go.”

The bus bounced and rocked on the rough unpaved road for another quarter mile, and then abruptly lifted with a jolt onto concrete paving. Matyas turned left. The highway was broad and smooth and ominously empty. Durell knew that the town of Gyor was behind them now, and no alert guard would be fooled by the sudden appearance of a wandering bus from Budapest. He felt tension creep along his nerves and muscles as the bus headlights swept the concrete ribbon ahead.

The barrier showed up quickly enough. A glow of light appeared, brightening steadily as Matyas headed for it without slackening speed. A red flare shot up into the sky, and other spotlights suddenly came on, flooding the area ahead with vivid brightness. There were several guard huts visible, flanking the highway, a wooden and steel barricade, the looming monstrous shapes of more Russian tanks, and then the figures of several men standing with rifles ready, waving them down.

“Slow down and stop,” Durell ordered.

Matyas thinned his mouth. “It is a temptation to crash through.”

“It wouldn’t work. Stop and go through the same routine. Say you are lost, that you were detoured, as you planned to say before.”